Exarchate of Ravenna

The Exarchate of Ravenna was a Byzantine lordship in Italy which existed from 584 to 751, with Ravenna serving as its capital. Italy had been reconquered from the Ostrogoths for the Romans under Emperor Justinian I from 535 to 553, and it was governed as a praetorian prefecture for decades. In 568, Alboin's Lombards invaded Italy, taking Pavia in 572 and making it their capital. In 582, Emperor Tiberius II of Byzantium created exarchates in Africa and Italy, and the Exarch of Ravenna had military, civil, and ecclesiastical powers. The exarchate was divided into several duchies, mostly coastal cities, as the Lombards gained control of the Italian hinterland. In 640, the Lombards conquered Liguria, while their duchy of Benevento conquered Naples and Calabria. By 740, the Exarchate held Istria, Venetia, Ferrara, Ravenna, the Pentapolis, and Perugia, and, in 751, the Lombards captured Ravenna, the capital of the Exarchate. Meanwhile, the Pope rebelled against the iconoclast Byzantine emperors and declared the independence of the Papal States, ending the Exarchate and Byzantine rule in central and northern Italy. The Catepanate of Italy was established to rule over Byzantine-held southern Italy.